SPRINGFIELD – A West Springfield couple is on trial this week on charges they caused substantial injury to their 5-month-old twins in 2008.

Shawndell Watts, 34, and Paula Watts, 29, are charged in a joint venture indictment, each facing four counts of assault and battery on a child with substantial injury.

Much of the testimony has been on the injuries to Imani Watts, who the prosecution says had her hand immersed in liquid hot enough to cause second degree burns on her palm and burning on the outside of her hand.

Doctors treating the burned hand on August 13, 2008, also found the little girl had subdural hematomas on her brain for which she had to have surgery. She also had three fractured ribs and abrasions.

When the other twin, Isaiah Watts, was examined it was found he had two breaks in his legs, Mulqueen said.

“These vulnerable infants were completely dependent on their parents,” she said. She said either alone or together the two parents caused the injuries or allowed them to occur.

Bernard T. O’Connor Jr., Shawndell Watts’ lawyer, said in his opening argument said the “horrible injuries” did happen and “my client sits here horrified but innocent.”

He said the twins were well cared for but had problems with swelling in their heads since they were born.

Anthony C. Bonavita, lawyer for Paula Watts said there is no evidence connecting her with the injuries. He said she was asleep when the burn happened and took the girl right to the emergency room.

In the jury-waived trial, Hampden Superior Court Judge Cornelius J. Moriarty listened Wednesday to videotaped interviews done with both defendants shortly after the girl was taken to the hospital with the hand injury.

Both parents, in separate interviews done with West Springfield detectives, contended the girl’s hand got burned when she rubbed it on Shawndell Watts face. They say the hand was burned by the lotion used by Watts’ barber on his face after a shave.

Kristin Condon, an investigator of the state Department of Children and Families, said the children were removed from the couples’ custody and have not been returned.

Dr. Thomas Kaye of Baystate Medical Center Neurosurgery testified the fluid in the girl’s head was not caused by plagiocephaly, for which she had been evaluated previously. He said when he did surgery he estimated the hematoma had developed over two to four weeks and resulted from traumatic force.

Dr Jackson Williams, Baystate Medical Center Pediatric Hospital Medicine Program director, said the clear line of demarcation on the infant’s wrist between the burned skin and unburned skin indicates an immersion burn.